[1185] Magical Grrl Potential Future Visualization Attack!

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< Piro >

"attn: readers in Puerto Rico"

Tuesday - February 3, 2009

UPDATE: Looks like this story has a happy ending - Jasmine Rieberger was picked up by Interpol and FBI agents about 40 miles outside of San Juan: Pittsfield Township girl found in Puerto Rico. For my next rant i'll try to focus on something a little less serious. Thank you for your attention. (Oh, and that comic thing? Drawings are about half done, i'll post sometime this afternoon as soon as i get back home).

Usually the news items here in the small community where we live are relatively benign and tend to be about High School sports and other community events. This afternoon, however, a local news story started to develop that has become a real world nightmare for a local family.

Here is a link to the story: Missing Saline teen believed to have taken flight to Puerto Rico.

16 year old Jasmine Rieberger purchased a one-way ticket to Puerto Rico and flew there Saturday afternoon. Before leaving she removed the hard drive from her computer to prevent her whereabouts from being tracked. The airline confirmed that she was on board the flight which arrived Saturday night. Our local police are working with the Police and a number of different agencies in Puerto Rico to locate her. Her father and grandfather arrived in Puerto Rico Monday afternoon to assist in the search but so far she has not been found.

The family has put out a call for help from anyone with contacts in Puerto Rico who might be able to help, so I'm passing this call on to our many readers in Puerto Rico. If you feel you can be of any assistance, please contact the family at staceinspace@gmail.com.

Now, the net itself has no real geographical boundaries, so this call isn't limited to those of you who live in Puerto Rico. If you know of anything at all that might help find Jasmine, please email the address above or contact me and i will put you in touch with the appropriate authorities.

This is not really the way i planned to break my rant silence of the past few months, but i appreciate your attention. Thank you!

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< Dom >

"Degree of Difficulty"

Friday - February 6, 2009

[Dom] - 15:54:46 - [link here]

It's uncanny. I take a perfectly normal game and make it harder on myself by trying to set unreasonable challenges for myself. My miserably failed attempt to play the Prinny game without losing a life was just a symptom of the larger disease - while playing Valkyria Chronicles, I routinely tried to shave 3-6 turns off of the "A" ranking time (S in Japanese). I don't really know why - maybe I like the challenge (doubtful), maybe I need to feel like I'm good at something (possible), or maybe I'm just crazy (probable).

The latest iteration of my madness is Persona 4, because I heard that you can finish off the game with a month to spare - so, of course, I set out to burn through the game as quickly as possible. One-day dungeon clears with poor gear, under-leveled characters, and mildly retarded personas? Sure! Giving up and reloading until I get the exact fish I want? Sure!

It's maddening, and I wish I could stop... but I know that if I don't do it right the first time, it'll nag away at me because I didn't get to see everything the first time.

Persona 4 is a great game, and I really can't blame the flaws I see in the game on anyone but myself. Though... I've spent a lot of time clenching my controller in frustration because a single death costs me hours of play time, and the Persona series likes to throw around attacks that kill you instantly as a way of ramping up the difficulty.

Anyway, that's all I have to say about that - I'm just glad I'm finally getting some play time out of Persona, since I bought it all the way back in August and never got past the first couple of days without having flashbacks to P3 and putting it down.